Official Packers 2023 Free Agency Thread

[Joemailman]

Unrestricted Free Agents (with 2022 cap hit in parentheses):

Allen Lazard (4 million)
Jonathan Abram (1 million)
Sammy Watkins (1.8 million)
Elgton Jenkins (4.7 million)
Dallin Leavitt (1.2 million)
Rudy Ford (1 million)
Eric Wilson (700K)
Keisean Nixon (965K)
Corey Ballentine (482K)
Justin Hollins (375K)

Free agents with void years added (with 2023 cap hit if cut):

Adrian Amos (8 million)
Dean Lowry (1.9 million)
Mason Crosby (1 million)
Marcedes Lewis (1 million)
Robert Tonyan (500K)
Jarran Reed (1.5 million)
Randall Cobb (1.4 million)

Restricted Free Agents (with 2022 cap hit in parentheses):

Yosuah Nijman (965K)
Krys Barnes (895K)
Tyler Davis (895K)
Jake Hanson (825K)

[texaspackerbacker]

A several of those (Abram, Wilson, and Ballentine) I've barely heard of and didn't even know we had.

Of the first group, Lazard would be nice to keep, but it's looking like he's gonna be third or fourth down the line of WRs, so they might not be willing to pay him what it takes. Ford and Nixon should both be re-elected - oops, re-signed. I wonder what it's gonna take to keep Jenkins. If it's a lot, let him go. Hollins looked good in his one game, but it's too soon to tell.

The second group, Amos is a must to keep. Lowery should be gone even if he plays for free. Lewis should get a million again. Tonyan should be kept. He probably will be cheaper now after his injury. Crosby should have been gone already. Reed is a maybe. Cobb is a maybe. Better Cobb than Watkins.

All of the last group except Hanson should probably be kept, although Davis and Barnes should be damn cheap.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Cletidus has a $24M cap hit next year. Packers will actually gain $3M if they cut this wanker before June 1. 3M ain’t much cap-wise, but Cletidus is due $18M next year.

$18M for 3 sacks and plenty of no shows is what the accountants call wasteful spending. Terminate Clark and use the cash on a bona fide #1 rock catcher.

Don’t worry about the cap. It can always be cooked.

[bobblehead]

Unrestricted Free Agents (with 2022 cap hit in parentheses):

Allen Lazard (4 million) EDIT: HE STAYS SOMEHOW. NOT SURE ON THE DETAILS
Jonathan Abram (1 million) GONE
Sammy Watkins (1.8 million) GONE
Elgton Jenkins (4.7 million) EXTENDED
Dallin Leavitt (1.2 million) RE SIGNED 1 YEAR
Rudy Ford (1 million) MAYBE EXTENDED DEFINITE RE SIGN
Eric Wilson (700K) WHO?? j/k PROBABLY GONE
Keisean Nixon (965K) PROBABLY GIVEN 1 YEAR DEAL
Corey Ballentine (482K) WHO CARES
Justin Hollins (375K) TIME WILL TELL

Free agents with void years added (with 2023 cap hit if cut):

Adrian Amos (8 million) NO CHANGE
Dean Lowry (1.9 million) NO CHANGE AND PACKER NATION GROANS
Mason Crosby (1 million) GONE
Marcedes Lewis (1 million) HARD TO SAY. PROBABLY ONE MORE YEAR
Robert Tonyan (500K) MODEST 3 YEAR DEAL
Jarran Reed (1.5 million) MODEST 3 YEAR DEAL
Randall Cobb (1.4 million) GONE UNLESS SHARON INTERVENES

Restricted Free Agents (with 2022 cap hit in parentheses):

Yosuah Nijman (965K) EXTENDED EITHER BEFORE SEASON OR MIDSEASON
Krys Barnes (895K)
Tyler Davis (895K) -------------ALL 3 PLAY OUT THE YEAR WITH
Jake Hanson (825K)

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Also, in the Balding Eagles game, NBC showed Clark being dominated single-handily by Kelce.

When a wanker is being paid $18M a year and he’s being dominated by an undersize, unathletic opponent, said wanker needs to be terminated. Burger flippers have been terminated for outputting far superior productions than Clark has been producing in the rye.

[KYPack]

Cletidus has a $24M cap hit next year. Packers will actually gain $3M if they cut this wanker before June 1. 3M ain’t much cap-wise, but Cletidus is due $18M next year.

$18M for 3 sacks and plenty of no shows is what the accountants call wasteful spending. Terminate Clark and use the cash on a bona fide #1 rock catcher.

Don’t worry about the cap. It can always be cooked.

No, it can't.

You saw how the cap cooked us last year.

[bobblehead]

No, it can't.

You saw how the cap cooked us last year.

People like APB, Tex and a friend of mine keep saying this. When I point out that the "cooking" done this year accomplished nothing except to pay the dead cap for the "cooking" of prior years I get a blank stare. Eventually you have to cook more to cover past expenses than you can currently create in cap savings. Basically if the cap is a cumulative 1 billion over 10 years, you can only spend 1 billion over 10 years. You can shift it around so you are paying most of it in the first 5 years, but sooner or later you have to pay up or you are net losing the transaction. Thats simply math 101, but in my experience a lot of people struggle with math...even those who passed the CPA.

[SudsMcBucky]

People like APB, Tex and a friend of mine keep saying this. When I point out that the "cooking" done this year accomplished nothing except to pay the dead cap for the "cooking" of prior years I get a blank stare. Eventually you have to cook more to cover past expenses than you can currently create in cap savings. Basically if the cap is a cumulative 1 billion over 10 years, you can only spend 1 billion over 10 years. You can shift it around so you are paying most of it in the first 5 years, but sooner or later you have to pay up or you are net losing the transaction. Thats simply math 101, but in my experience a lot of people struggle with math...even those who passed the CPA.

Agreed. This is not a very hard concept to understand. Yes, you can push money out into future years, but eventually you will have to account for it. Some teams structure deals to spread out the years in which different contracts will hit and others don't care about it at the time and the money hits all at once.

[Fritz]

Unrestricted Free Agents (with 2022 cap hit in parentheses):

Allen Lazard (4 million) EDIT: HE STAYS SOMEHOW. NOT SURE ON THE DETAILS
Jonathan Abram (1 million) GONE
Sammy Watkins (1.8 million) GONE
Elgton Jenkins (4.7 million) EXTENDED
Dallin Leavitt (1.2 million) RE SIGNED 1 YEAR
Rudy Ford (1 million) MAYBE EXTENDED DEFINITE RE SIGN
Eric Wilson (700K) WHO?? j/k PROBABLY GONE
Keisean Nixon (965K) PROBABLY GIVEN 1 YEAR DEAL
Corey Ballentine (482K) WHO CARES
Justin Hollins (375K) TIME WILL TELL

Free agents with void years added (with 2023 cap hit if cut):

Adrian Amos (8 million) NO CHANGE
Dean Lowry (1.9 million) NO CHANGE AND PACKER NATION GROANS
Mason Crosby (1 million) GONE
Marcedes Lewis (1 million) HARD TO SAY. PROBABLY ONE MORE YEAR
Robert Tonyan (500K) MODEST 3 YEAR DEAL
Jarran Reed (1.5 million) MODEST 3 YEAR DEAL
Randall Cobb (1.4 million) GONE UNLESS SHARON INTERVENES

Restricted Free Agents (with 2022 cap hit in parentheses):

Yosuah Nijman (965K) EXTENDED EITHER BEFORE SEASON OR MIDSEASON
Krys Barnes (895K)
Tyler Davis (895K) -------------ALL 3 PLAY OUT THE YEAR WITH
Jake Hanson (825K)

I would agree with this assessment. If you do that and trade Rodgers after June 1, you have a rough 2023 but the pieces in place for the following year.

[NewsBruin]

When you cook the cap (converting salary to signing/roster bonus), you lose flexibility. You're now committed to having that guy on your salary cap, no matter if he blows out a knee, or blabs to the press about how the Vikings treat their players better, or takes the offensive coordinator's wife to Bora Bora. If you want to cut or trade him, your cap eats all of that bonus money. Your trading buddies love that prospect because they can swap a lesser player for the player you've already paid out.

And with big-time players, there's no cap-cooking for free. They always want more from that bonus and new salary than they were making before, even though it's money up-front and in-hand that previously wasn't guaranteed.

The Saints are a model example here. Every season, they'd sign Drew Brees to a contract with a ludicrous salary. Every offseason, to get under the cap, they'd change it to a signing bonus and add more years with a ludicrous salary. Every offseason, Drew's arm strength would decline and Drew would say "I don't know if I'm all-in for another season or two." Every year, the Saints would put their fingers in their ears and extend Brees. At least Brees was a guy who elevated the Saints lockerroom and public image, even when he wasn't the same player from his Super Bowl run.

Brees up and retired to no one's surprise (except the front office), and the salary-cap hole was so huge, Sean Payton said nope and quit (secretly hoping for a Brady-led front office in Miami).

[run pMc]

Free agents with void years added (with 2023 cap hit if cut):

Confused by this label -- if they are free agents, you can't cut them unless you mean before the 2023 season starts in March or whenever. They are by definition free agents to sign with whomever they want.
Those void years still count however.
Kevin King is still counting against this year's cap (and IIRC next year's) because of the contract he signed last year had two void years on it.
I'm not a big fan of using void years for this reason -- it's just dead money for a player that has an expired contract.

What am I misunderstanding?

[Joemailman]

Confused by this label -- if they are free agents, you can't cut them unless you mean before the 2023 season starts in March or whenever. They are by definition free agents to sign with whomever they want.
Those void years still count however.
Kevin King is still counting against this year's cap (and IIRC next year's) because of the contract he signed last year had two void years on it.
I'm not a big fan of using void years for this reason -- it's just dead money for a player that has an expired contract.

What am I misunderstanding?

You're right. They don't get cut. They become free agents and the void years are paid out over several years instead of accelerating in 2023.

So the 2023 cap hits for players with void years would be:

Adrian Amos (2.25 million)
Dean Lowry (622K)
Mason Crosby (335K)
Marcedes Lewis (525K)
Robert Tonyan (500K)
Jarran Reed (373K)
Randall Cobb (1.4 million)

[texaspackerbacker]

People like APB, Tex and a friend of mine keep saying this. When I point out that the "cooking" done this year accomplished nothing except to pay the dead cap for the "cooking" of prior years I get a blank stare. Eventually you have to cook more to cover past expenses than you can currently create in cap savings. Basically if the cap is a cumulative 1 billion over 10 years, you can only spend 1 billion over 10 years. You can shift it around so you are paying most of it in the first 5 years, but sooner or later you have to pay up or you are net losing the transaction. Thats simply math 101, but in my experience a lot of people struggle with math...even those who passed the CPA.

You're looking at it like it's a finite situation - even if you extend it and talk about a ten year period instead of just the current one. It's not. By the end of that ten year period you're talking about, you start spending well on into the next five or ten years, and so on and so on. You can keep on kicking the can down the road as long as you need to. That would be the case even if the cap wasn't increasing - which, of course it is. Not doing that would put you at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the league - which has experts who realize exactly how to take advantage that way - call it cooking or whatever you want to call it.

[Joemailman]

Teams certainly are accepting more dead money than they have in the past. Packers have over 28 million in dead money in 2022. That sounds like a lot. But it's only 16th in the NFL. https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space Maybe this is a permanent trend. Maybe teams are still trying to dig out of 2020 and 2021 when reduced revenue due to Covid led to lower salary caps. Whatever the case, teams are doing things differently than they used to. It is true that most of the teams with the most dead money are doing poorly, with the exception of Philadelphia and N.Y. Giants. Whether there is a direct cause and effect is debatable I suppose.

[Tony Oday]

Unrestricted Free Agents (with 2022 cap hit in parentheses):

Allen Lazard (4 million) Bye
Jonathan Abram (1 million) Bye
Sammy Watkins (1.8 million) Bye
Elgton Jenkins (4.7 million) Re-sign, he will be extended this year
Dallin Leavitt (1.2 million) bye
Rudy Ford (1 million) small offer
Eric Wilson (700K) bye
Keisean Nixon (965K) re-sign
Corey Ballentine (482K) re-sign
Justin Hollins (375K) re-sign

Free agents with void years added (with 2023 cap hit if cut):

Adrian Amos (8 million) re-sign
Dean Lowry (1.9 million) bye
Mason Crosby (1 million) re-sign
Marcedes Lewis (1 million) re-sign if you can
Robert Tonyan (500K) re-sign if the dollar is right but he has lost a step this year
Jarran Reed (1.5 million) bye
Randall Cobb (1.4 million) if AR is still here re-sign

Restricted Free Agents (with 2022 cap hit in parentheses):

Yosuah Nijman (965K) re-sign
Krys Barnes (895K) bye
Tyler Davis (895K) bye
Jake Hanson (825K) bye